Emancipation Proclamation

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. - Thoreau

Beaten and degraded.

Stooped over in life's sweaty killing field unshaded.

Stuck in a prison of my own making.

Earth shattering and soul shaking.

The barrenness of a fruitless spirit floating through the air.

Like a bald head of hair.

Forty years of acute agitation.

A faithless renunciation.

Waiting for an emancipation proclamation.

Disheartened and disowned.

My sins atoned.

God intervening.

Giving my life meaning.

Knees bloody and raw from praying.

Humanity hearing a matter-of-factly just saying.

Singing psalms and waving my arm.

Buzzing with the warning of an incessant alarm.

Where there's smoke there must be untapped power.

Especially at the manifest, midnight hour.

Moment of truth like a frightening D-day.

Because there is no other way.

I rubbed my spit in the dirt and coughed.

The doors flew open and the chains fell off.

Running to face my demons and offer up a plea.

No piece of paper necessary to decree what I was created to be.

Turns out ...

... I had always been free ...

Author's Note

"I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad." - Thoreau